I shouldn't really call them "spoots". My mum hates that. We always called them razor fish but they are now (pretentiously trendily) often called "razor clams". I've also heard "spout fish" and "razor shell". In Gaelic my dad always called them "muirsgian" which I suppose translates as "sea knife". Anyway, it was a new moon yesterday and the tide was low, down below the sand bar, at just the right time for my lunch break. How kind of the moon to oblige. I hastily pulled on my wellies and "wellied it" down to the beach; salt and bucket in hand.
It worked! Saw water-spout; immediately chucked on pile of salt; razor fish became restless in its hidey-hole and duly rose up to the surface, thrashing salty "foot" in aggravated manner. I just pulled it out of the sand and tossed it into my bucket. Easy. If only I'd known that trick during my childhood I'd have saved myself a lot of split and bleeding fingernails from failed razor fish-grabbing attempts. Would probably have got a row from dad for wasting salt, though. He loves to do things the hard way.
The trick is to get the salt down as soon as you see the water-spout. Any delay and the razor fish gets too deep to be affected.
I got two big ones in the fifteen minutes or so before the tide came in over the sand bar. Straight up to the house: slit them open (they didn't like this much), disentangled the tasty bits from the slightly questionable bits, chopped them up and chucked them into a very hot frying pan (I didn't actually use the wok) for about thirty seconds. Salt, pepper and some sweet chilli sauce. Delicious.
Fast food and an altogether different kind of lunch break.
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